The invention relates to data communication systems, and more particularly to data sharing, storage, and/or transfer systems and methods.
Advancement in digital technology has increased demands for data storage. Crucial data in significant amount are created daily and may need system to back them up. Various data storage and transfer devices have been developed over the years to help users secure, exchange, or transfer their data and many different interfaces may be used for data communication. For example, devices using a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface have been widely accepted by many computing or processing devices as portable or compact devices to provide data communication, storage, and transfer without demanding separate or resourceful power supply from devices such as a host PC.
Using the USB interface as an example without limiting the scope of the invention, when a user connects a USB device to the host PC, the host PC detects the USB device as a new device. The first thing that the host does after device detection is to issue a command for obtaining device identification or description to the USB device. The new device may respond by sending its device descriptor, which may be a unique description of what the device is. The host PC may then recognize or decide what device driver and communication protocol may be used to communicate with the device. Among various USB devices, multifunction USB devices may support both a linking function where the device connects two hosts for data exchange and a storage function where a host can store data in the device. Those devices may need appropriate device driver(s) and command sets to allow them to function and sometimes may demand a complicated process to set up communication channels and functions.
In some applications, it may be desirable to have data transfer device that may reduce manual or complicated installation of device driver on the host PC.